Highlights of the Nov 14, 2002, meeting of the College Park Senate

  • Presentation by Chancellor Kirwan: Discussion included the budget deficit; the "unfunded mandate" associated with Maryland's partnership agreement with the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights (OCR); the Tuition Task Force and particularly the question of need-based financial aid; collective bargaining; and relations with community colleges with respect to teacher training.

    [Entertainingly, the lights went out briefly not once but twice during Chancellor Kirwan's presentation while he was talking about budgetary challenges. Guess they'd better pay that overdue PEPCO bill.]

  • The election of the nominations committee took place via paper ballots. Faculty senators were to vote for four candidates. There were a total of four candidates on the ballot.

  • The Senate approved a recommendation to redefine the undergraduate maximum credit load in order to uniformly accommodate courses of different lengths (not just 15-week semester courses, but also 3-week winter courses and 3, 6, 8, and 10-week summer courses). Doing the math led to an increase per 15-week semester from 19 to 20 credits maximum, since the formula worked out to a maximum of 1 1/3 credit per week.

  • The Senate approved a recommendation to add the title of Senior Lecturer to the APT Policy.

  • The Senate approved a proposal to create a Master of Information Management program at CLIS.

  • The Senate approved a proposal to create a postbaccalaureate Certificate in Critical Theory in the Dept of English.

    Thanks go to Philip Resnik, UMIACS Senator, for the above report!
    Bonnie Dorr & Don Perlis
    Senators, Department of Computer Science